Breakfast

Tuesday, 29 March 2011

A nice easy one for you to try this weekend. I just got inspired for something that reminded me of New York Cuisine, so think Reubenish sandwich for breakfast, which means Beef Pastrami, but add the ever popular fried eggs and some grilled cheese and Little Italy and we get my concept of NY Brekkie - a nice simple breakfast for the family, which is what I cooked last Saturday with a little help from my aspiring chef, my 10 year old daughter. You need:

First up, prepare all your ingredients that don't need frying, so cut up your day old ciabatta length ways and place in the toaster (if big enough) on a low setting. Cut up your cheese - about two thin slices per person. After your ciabatta has been lightly toasted, place 2 slices of beef pastrami on top, pop into the grill for about 3-5 minutes as pastrami will grill very quickly and begin to dry out - get your assistant to watch this, whilst you fry your eggs.

I recommend a softish yolk for your eggs, because you will place your fried eggs on top of the grilled pastrami and top with sliced chillies and cheddar cheese, which you will pop back under the grill to melt the cheese, cooking the yolk again. In any case, runny yolk taste better and it kinda reminds you of the yellow cabs of NY, hmmmm!

Yep ! that's it folks - as they would say in NY, so eat up, enjoy and sample a bit of NY style, courtesy of moi.

Excuse my slight tendency to bring Americanism into some of the lingo above, but it kind of goes with the whole concept.

Start with the dry ingredients by sifting the flour, bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl, followed by the caster sugar.

Scoop your 3 heaped dessert spoons of yoghurt into the flour mixture, pour in your eggs, which should be thoroughly whisked beforehand and then your 100ml of canola oil.

Now mash your bananas with a fork and put it into the muffin mixture. Mix until no flour streak appear and then pour your melted 50g of chocolate in.

TIP: Muffins should be airy, so don't over mix, if not the muffins will emigrate into fairy cakes, as they will be heavy. One trick is to use the fork, which naturally has vents, as opposed to a spoon, but just mix until the mixture becomes one, then STOP.

Place your muffin mixture into their cases and then make the CRUNCH, for which you'll need:

20g each of unsalted cold butter and caster sugar

a handful of flaked almonds

Now, place everything into a bowl and crunch into a crumbly mixture. You know if this is working, if you get large chunks of the mixture stuck to your hand and large chunks in the bowl. If it's too sticky, add extra flour, but don't make it too dry. You should have enough to sprinkle on top of the muffins.

TIP: sprinkle the large chunks containing the almonds around the side of the muffin, as opposed to the top, as you want the muffins to rise easily and struggle with heavy chunks of almond and butter sugar.

Bake in the top of the oven at 190C for about 15-20 minutes, checking that the muffin give a little but isn't wet on top. The idea is moist. the muffins will continue to cook a little when you take them out f the oven, so for this recipe I'm not recommending the cake tester method as you first deflate the muffin and if it's dry, it ain't going to be moist.

Muffins are nicest fresh out of the oven and best eaten the day they are made, but if this isn't possible, you can warm them up for about 15 seconds in the microwave and eat them with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

If this all sound complicated, and you live in Cape Town, stop by at Escape Caffe, 130 Bree Street, around 7am, where I make them fresh. I'm also thinking about running this recipe for kiddie parties on Saturday afternoons from May 2011.

Thursday, 17 March 2011

I haven't forgotten about you - my readers, if I have any left after a 3 month hiatus. I plan to blog more about tasty recipes, beginning with my caffe style muffins, so watch this space, but to prepare, you'll need:

Monday, 31 May 2010

Interesting isn't it ? Well ! I thought so when I first saw this in a magazine, which featured some great recipes by one of my favourite Aussie chef, Bill Granger. Apparently, hotcakes are quite a popular breakfast item in Australia, especially on "lazy sundays" and I think Bill Granger has made the "ricotta" version popular. In any case, I was wondering why ricotta cheese (there's still a debate about whether it's a cheese or not) appears to be used in so many Aussie recipes and I think the relatively large Italian community there may have an influence. BUT ricotta hotcakes, primarily an American style pancake, crossed with ricotta cheese seems very novel indeed. OK ! enough chit chatter, how do you make this delicious breakfast, which incidentally is now a favourite at home on Sunday mornings - "daddy please, can we have ricotta hotcakes again ?" "yes ! was my reply this morning", making this my freshest blog ever.

You need:

230g Ricotta Cheese (I usually buy mine by weight but the standard 250g should do)

2 large free range eggs (separate egg yolk from egg whites)

100ml of organic milk

1 vanilla pod (you can omit this or replace with half a teaspoon of vanilla extract)

70g of plain/all-purpose/cake flour

half a teaspoon of baking powder

half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon (optional)

some unsalted butter and vegetable oil for frying, using a 28cm diameter non-stick frying pan

This should make between 12-14

First up, measure out your flour and milk and pour it into a large mixing bowl with the ricotta and egg yolks and mix until just combined - if using, scrape your vanilla seeds from one pod inside too, as well as pouring your ground cinnamon in.

Then whisk the egg whites until soft peaks appear and pour into the flour/milk/egg yolk and ricotta mixture and again mix until just combined and uniform in texture.

Place your frying pan onto a medium set stove top and if you're rich enough only use butter - approximately 1 dessert spoon per batch - you'll need to fry about 3-4 batches. Alternatively, combine 1 dessert spoon of vegetable/canola oil with about a heaped teaspoon of butter. When the oil/butter mixture begins to sizzle, place your hotcakes into the frying pan, using a heaped tablespoon per hotcake. So in essence if you're using a 28 cm non-stick frying pan, you should be able to fry 4 at a time. Fry them for about 2 minutes each side, by which time they should be medium brown.

Stack Em,

For toppings (the yummy part)

Caramelized Banana - 1 large banana, cut length ways to get about 12 pieces. Fry with 1 teaspoon of brown sugar and a knob of butter for about 2 minutes. Better to do this just after the hotcakes have been made and the heat is still on.

For honey butter, mix about 30g butter with a table spoon of runny honey and store in the fridge before you begin the hotcakes

The picture at the top of the blog is topped with honey butter and caramelized bananas.

For Mascarpone and Maple Syrup ganache, just mix about 2 heaped tablespoons of mascarpone cheese with 1 tablespoon of maple syrup.

Just sharing a pic of the one I made a few weeks back, using my son's favourite mascarpone and maple syrup ganache. He loves it so much, he always offers to mix it.

This is really a wonderful and tasty recipe and it won't take too long to make, say about 20 minutes between preparation and sitting down to eat - if you can't resist taking a picture of course, just like me, enjoy !

Inspired by a recipe by Bill Granger with massive revisions by me concerning measurements and the addition of real vanilla.

Tuesday, 20 April 2010

I've never really thought that much about making my own cereal, mainly because there are so many exciting flavours on offer, but walking through all these health shops and spotting the ridiculous prices on some of them, I thought "I've got to try this one time to see why it's so special and expensive". So, here we are... "I'm making my own granola cereal". However, for this tasty experiment, there could be no compromise on getting it wrong the first time and so I recall seeing a lovely recipe by Donna Hay, way back in 2007 - you see, when it comes to food, my memory usually doesn't fail me - ask the wife. Well ! you'll be glad to know that after scanning the ingredients (with a little tweak from me but of course) and method for this lovely invention, I was pleasantly surprised to discover 2 things - the stuff isn't expensive to buy and it's so easy to make, so here goes;

You need:

400g of rolled oats (you can pick this up in any supermarket and it is really affordable)

100ml of Canola oil

1 tablespoon of unsalted butter

150ml of runny honey

2 tablespoons of Maple Syrup (optional but it makes it more luxurious)

50g of raw cashew nuts

50g of raw almonds

25g of cranberries (optional)

25g of raisins

75g of mixed seeds like sesame, sunflower, pumpkin and melon

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Makes 700g

Preheat your oven to 180C and line a non-stick large baking tray with baking parchment. Pour the canola oil into a small pan and once it begins to get hot put the tablespoon of butter in, as well as the 150ml of honey (TIP - pour the honey into the same measuring jug you used for the oil and the honey will be easier to pour). As soon as the butter has melted and the canola oil, honey and butter mixture flow as one, then take of the heat. Measure the rest of the ingredients and pour into a large bowl and then pour the oil mixture in and stir until evenly coated. Place on the lined baking tin and put into the oven.

The whole baking time should take about 20-25 minutes but I advise you to check it every 6-8 minutes so that it doesn't burnt - the combination of honey, oil and oats creates a sugar mass that burns easily, so watch it closely. As soon as it is done it should be golden and not burnt. Take it out and whilst it cools try to break it gently - don't leave it for hours as it will be hard to break later. Once ready, pour the granola into an airtight container and it should last for about 4 weeks - mine lasted just under 2, as my daughter fell in love with it and wife mixed it with ice cream.

For breakfast, it works well with a little slightly hot milk, topped with thick natural yoghurt (called Bulgarian in South Africa) and fresh fruit like strawberries or/and banana.

Monday, 26 October 2009

It's been a while and I'm actually a bit embarrassed, but I do have an excuse.. I was traveling again and God willing more about that soon. So to make up, I'm going to give you a double treat, two recipes in one post. First up, I must say I have only just discovered cooking couscous - a bit late in the day, after several years of basking in the kitchen. So, what ignited this sudden interest ? Well ! I was flicking through one of my favourite cookbooks, Tom Kime's Exploring Taste + Flavour and saw this wonderful picture of jeweled couscous, with just looked so colourful, I thought "I've got to try this one day" and that day was several weeks back. However, I didn't blog about that experience because being a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to tastes and food visuals, I wanted for one of the key ingredients to be in season. So here it goes and I must say the "Jewel" part of the couscous really defines it, as some of the ingredients really are like jewels, at least from a sourcing and monetary perspective as you've got unsalted pistachios (more expensive than salted ones), dried cranberries and pomegranates (in season from about September to November). There's other stuff like a bit of orange juice, raisins, dried chillies, sesame seeds, parsley, coriander and rucola (or rocket or arugula leaves) and also olive oil and of course hot water and couscous itself. As a bit of a non-conformist, I modified the recipe slightly to make it more "tasty" from my perspective, so I actually fried some onions, garlic and butter beforehand. So you need;

Savoury Version

300g of medium sized couscous

500ml boiling water

3 tablespoon of olive oil

3 tablespoons of orange juice

Juice from half a lemon

1 tablespoon of dried cranberries

seeds from half a pomegranates

50g of pistachios

50g of sesame seeds

Bunch of parsley, coriander and rucola

Half an onion roughly chopped

1 clove of minced garlic

1 tablespoon of butter

Put the pistachios into a hot frying pan and dry fry for about 2 minutes stirring regularly until fragrant, then add and fry the onion, roughly chopped with the butter, the minced garlic and dried chillies for about 5 minutes - take off the heat and then add 2 tablespoons each of pomegranates and raisins, 1 tablespoon of dried cranberries and put aside. Measure the couscous and pour the hot water inside together with the olive oil, orange and lemon juices. Cover with cling film or foil and leave for 5 minutes until all the water has been absorbed. Break up with a fork and put into the frying pan and give it a good stir with the other ingredients. Now add the leaves and serve.

Sweet Version

Last year at the leaving party of a former colleague from Tunisia, I was introduced to breakfast couscous, which on first sight I thought... "that's a bit strange, couscous with nuts, served as a breakfast" but after one taste, I almost embarrassed myself by serving up 3 bowls for my palate. Apparently sweet is a popular choice amongst for breakfast amongst Tunisians, who already fight with Morocco to claim the staple pulse as their main food and culinary introduction into the World. In any case, the thought of a making a sweet couscous never left my head and you can imagine I was pleasantly surprised when I finally came across a recipe inside Marie Claire's Kitchen. So one morning, bored with the usual toast and cereal brekkie, I decided that the time was right to try sweet couscous for breakfast. Again I adapted it to suit my taste and used half a portion of milk mixed with water as opposed to just hot water. I topped with with another in-season fruit, fresh figs. So here you need,

Pour the couscous, cinnamon, honey, sugar, salt and milk and water mixture into a saucepan on medium heat and stir. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes and remove from the heat and leave to stand for another 5 minutes. Break up with a fork and add the raisins, cranberries and pistachios (if using) and the almond slivers. Put into a bowl and top with 2 tablespoons of yoghurt, drizzle of honey and fresh fruit like below.

Note on Couscous: Because it is such a strong pulse, you really need to flavour it well. So for the sweet one, you may need to add more sugar and for the savoury one you may need to add more salt and spices, because couscous absorbs a lot of flavours and if you go easy on the spices it will taste quite bland.

Tuesday, 22 September 2009

Not sure what you think about this, but I just love the colours and when I saw a picture of it in Bill Granger's "Feed Me Now" cookbook, I knew I was sold. My first confession of today is that this was actually yesterday's breakfast, but as I was having problems logging onto typepad, I wasn't able to share the experience freshly - does that make sense ? However, being a bit of a visionary when it comes to preparing food in any case, as my wife would let you know, I already had the vision of my next post a few days ago as reading "Today's breakfast", so here it is, and of course, it's so simple.

First up, heat the olive oil in the frying pan on medium to high heat, then through in tiny bits of half a hand full of ciabatta bread, together with some chilli powder or chilli flakes. As soon as the the chilli begins to sizzles, through in some radicchio leaves (I advise about 3 strips) quickly followed your eggs - break them slowly so that the egg yolks don't scatter.

Fry to your liking, but for this I kept the yolks a bit runny. You can place the eggs on top of lightly toasted ciabatta, which is what I did, or just on top of a plate. When ready to serve, throw the remaining radicchio leaves on top, sprinkle with sea salt of chilli salt like me, et voila, fried eggs, with torn bread, chilli and radicchio leaves.

Sometimes the best things in life are so simple. I showed the pictures to my kids and of course they said,"you always make the best stuff for yourself daddy" but I reminded my daughter that she didn't like radicchio, but smartly she replied "I'll have everything except the red leaves"

Tuesday, 18 August 2009

"One more time Daddy " - that was the chant from my kids when I told them I wasn't making anymore french bread experiments. So, I just couldn't help myself as I glanced around the kitchen looking for what to try out for another French Toast "tasty experiment" and with all that real Madagascan vanilla pods in my house, following a wonderful holiday in Mauritius (about 2 hours flight away), it had to be something with vanilla. So, following the same principle as the previous 3 posts, here is my version of Real Vanilla and French Toast. Real vanilla because I'm using vanilla pods and not vanilla extract and cinnamon, because I think it's one of those spices that really compliments vanilla.

This recipe is actually much simpler than the previous two as there is only one dipping procedure and not two. The most important thing on this recipe are the two key ingredients, vanilla pods and cinnamon and I was actually close to calling this Millionaires Breakfast, because using one full vanilla pod is not cheap. First up, break one egg into a pan and mix, followed by about half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon and the seeds from one pod of vanilla, followed by a dash of milk. Mix thoroughly so that the vanilla seeds begin to separate.

Dip three small slices of brioche into the egg mixture, making sure that they soak up every bit of the egg mixture. Fry the bread slices in a non-stick frying pan with about half a tablespoon of unsalted butter on medium heat until well done, but not burnt. As a garnish to compliment this poshest (or exclusive) of French Toasts, I mixed two full tablespoons of mascarpone cheese with one teaspoon of caster sugar and one tablespoon of organic Canadian maple syrup. Delicious, scrumptious, hmmm !

What a wonderful experience, delighting my taste buds with glee. I've taken this shot above, so you can see the vanilla seeds up close and "tasty".

To go further, I just couldn't help myself as I wanted to know what this french toast would taste like if served as a dessert, and so I placed a scoop of my freshly made very vanilla ice cream on top - recipe to follow very soon I promise, God willing.

Worth every effort and although I would love to serve this in a cafe, I think this version will be confined to the Millionaires breakfast table.

Thursday, 13 August 2009

So for my final input on "the French Toast Diaries" until I try something new, here is Chocolate French Toast. For those who love chocolate, I can almost hear you smacking your lips, but for those who cringe at the thought, it's not as bad as you think, especially if you follow one of the chocolate baking rules of always using dark chocolate with cocoa solids of over 60% and little added sugar - in that way you get the real chocolate taste and not the milked up version that is so common in shops.

For making this very interesting breakfast treat, just follow the guidelines from my previous post on "Making Espresso French Toast", but of course you will replace the espresso with 100g of melted dark high cocoa solids chocolate. So in summary,

Melt 100g of dark chocolate (over 60% cocoa solids) in a bowl over boiling water and but into a bowl

Set aside 3 small slices of brioche

Mix one large organic egg in a separate bowl

Put the stove on medium heat and place a knob of butter into a non-stick frying pan, large enough to hold 3 slices of your brioche

Place one slice of the brioche at a time very briefly into the melted chocolate, covering both sides and then place quickly into the egg mixture, making sure that the chocolate bread is covered completely in egg.

After this, place the slices of brioche into the frying pan and fry on both sides for about 2 minutes each, watching carefully as the chocolate mixture is a lot thicker than the espresso we used in the previous post, and so it will burn quicker.

Et voila ! Chocolate French Toast.

As you've used dark chocolate, which is not that sweet, but mind you a lot more healthier than the milk chocolate version, you'll need to top your chocolate French Toast with something natural and sweet, like bananas and maple syrup - I also added a spoon of mascarpone cheese. You can sandwich the slices together and put something inside to make a chocolate french toast sandwich, but up close and "tasty" you can see that the chocolate sipped right through into the bread.

Like the espresso version, the chocolate version has a slightly nutty taste too, but of course

with a chocolate twist.

So worth a try and an "impress your friends" recipe.

If you really want to show off, you can even serve this as a dessert too.

Monday, 03 August 2009

I first came across the concept "Espresso French Toast" whilst scrolling through the menu offering at Shelley's of Cape Town. However, not to be defeated, I thought "I wonder what that's about and screened as many magazines as possible for a recipe, but to no success, until I finally saw on Nomu's monthly letter, a recipe for Chocolate French Toast (more on that later) and decided to adapt it to my espresso French Toast idea, so here it is, "Espresso French Toast", for those who want to have their espresso and eat it, merging my passion for coffee and cooking together for what I call a "tasty" experiment. Before taking you on this journey of sensual pleasure, what exactly is French Toast, for those of you not into cooking and baking. In short, French Toast is actually the posh word for bread dipped in mixed egg and fried until well done. It is usually topped with something sweet like strawberry jam, maple syrup or honey. I'm also guessing it was devised in a French kitchen many years ago.

So, to work then. The good thing is that this is a really simple recipe if you know how to use a frying pan, extract good espresso and fry eggs of course. So you need;

Luckily, I've managed to capture the whole experiment visually to make it easy for you to follow. First up, break one large, preferably organic egg into a bowl, mix and set aside. Extract one double espresso into a shallow bowl and put two spoons of caster sugar inside and mix to dissolve. It is crucial that you extract good espresso - as you can see from the pic below, the crema - the sign of a well extracted espresso - has to be visible is ever present and with me, there is no compromising when it comes to good coffee.

Get your slices of brioche and place very quickly into the espresso mixture as you don't want the slices drenched in coffee.

Quickly take it out and place straight away into the egg mixture, making sure it is nicely coated in egg.

Place into a hot frying pan with a knob of butter and fry each side for about 2 minutes each.

Take out and place on a plate, top with something sweet like honey or jam, or if you are flashy like me and love sweet fattening things, top with a dollop of mascarpone, slices of strawberries and maple syrup.

So what does it taste like then ? Well ! you'll be pleased to know that the coffee elements have not been drenched out because of egg and butter. It actually had a vanilla and chocolate taste, almost like a dessert. Note that if you are going to drench your bread into coffee, the coffee should be good, displaying as much of the good qualities of a well extracted espresso as possible, so that the lovely taste is captured in the bread. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised, if not, let's face it, I won't be blogging about it.

Don't tell too many people about this recipe as I would love to serve it in my trendy cafe, if I ever get the opportunity to open one up before I die.

Monday, 01 June 2009

I'm not being obnoxious, but Feed Me Now ! is actually the title of Bill Granger's new cook book. I don't know what it is, but my two favourite Australian cooks, Bill Granger and Donna Hay have a talent for creating recipes that are easy to understand and cook as well as being tasty to eat. So, I didn't have breakfast and dinner with Bill Granger - sorry to disappoint - but upon receiving the new cookbook in the post through amazon, I was so inspired to try two of his recipes straight away.

Strawberry Breakfast Crunch

As I was trying this out, I modified the recipe a bit, so that it was enough for one, me of course - as the most experimental person in the family. So, cut 4 strawberries into half and split them equally between two le creuset or ramekin stoneware dishes, sprinkle with 1 teaspoon of sugar and place in a 180C oven for 10 minutes. During this time, mix together 50g Swiss muesli, 2 dessert spoons of caster sugar and one dessert spoon each of unsalted butter & plain flour and mix into a crunch or crumble with your hands. If you don't want to dirty your hands that early in the morning, using a fork and mix together ferociously until you get the crumble. Take the baked strawberries out, place the crunch on top, press gently and place back into the oven for 10 minutes, take out, place some Greek yoghurt on top and enjoy.

Simple wasn't it ? A real treat at breakfast time - a different way to eat muesli in the morning.

Now for dinner. I've always wanted to make meatballs but wasn't convinced my wife would eat them, but after my kids tasted them at a friends house, I thought I've got to try this out and when I saw this in Bill's book, I thought this is it, go for it. The only addition I made to this was that I made the sauce in the oven only as opposed to the stove (as in the book). Turn the oven on to about 200C and place a stoneware dish into the oven with about 4 tablespoons of olive oil. TIP - when you place the meatballs in the oil, it will be so hot that it will fry the meatballs instantly locking up the flavour. Making meatballs is a bit like making burgers, only smaller of course. So, mix together 500g ground minced beef, half a grated onion, 50g of fresh or store-bough bread crumbs, 3 tablespoons of chopped coriander and parsley, 1 teaspoon each of ground cumin, salt, chilli pepper and sweet paprika (you need to hunt this spice down as I have only found it in really expensive foodie shops, but omit if you can't find) and one egg. Roll into small balls with floured hands (I find this easier than with wet hands as recommended by Bill) - I managed to get about 20 - you've got get as many as possible with kids like mine, because they'll be trying to finish everything in one sitting.

Anyway, place the meatballs into the hot oiled stoneware dish. Now ! make the sauce: Place 4 tablespoons of olive oil into a heavy based frying pan on medium heat and as soon as it is hot, place 1 white onion (Spanish if you can find it) sliced into rings, 1 garlic clove finely sliced, 1 portion of ginger (fresh thumb size or if using ground, 1 teaspoon) 1 teaspoon each of ground turmeric and cumin. During this time, place 1 400g tinned tomatoes, 1 garlic clove and the tamarind pulp - again if you can find into a blender and blitz. If you find tamarind pulp, you will need to soak a 1 inch piece in hot water for about 20 minutes before using. If you cannot find, Bill recommends using 2 tablespoons of lime juice.

Fry the tomato and tamarind sauce with a dessert spoon of brown sugar (sugar brings out the flavour in tomatoes apparently), 1 teaspoon of salt for about 10 minutes until the sauce begins to separate from the oil and place into the oven with the meatballs and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes on 180C uncovered. Take out, sprinkle with fresh coriander leaves and serve.

For my tomato sambal, cut one tasty tomato into bits (i.e dice) together with about 4 inch length of cucumber into quarters and one minced garlic clove, place into a deep dish and place good quality natural yoghurt into the bowl until it covers the tomatoes and cucumber, mix with one mint leaf, thinly sliced, a spinkle of salt and freshly grated black pepper. Put into the fridge until ready to eat.

But, I haven't finished yet, because the next thing I discovered from this recipe will change the way I cook rice forever. I was a bit suspicious - how can you cook rice in 10 minutes ? So first up, slice an onion thinly and place into a heavy based frying pan with a knob of butter (about a dessert spoon) together with about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and fry for about 5 minutes, then place 500g of basmati rice in the pan with a handful of raisins, fry for about 2 minutes, stirring until the rice is completely coated with the oil. Then pour 1 liter of boiling water into the pan with half a tablespoon of salt and few sprigs of saffron threads, cover, bring to the boil and lower the temperature to a low setting for about 8 minutes, checking to see if it's done, Et VOILA, rice in 10 minutes.

It's so great that I've made it twice in 5 days, the rice that is. The dish was a hit, because everyone in the family were like "Wow ! Daddy, when can you make this again ?" I kind of replied "why don't you eat this first and then we'll see."

There are a lot more tasty menus in the book and I tried another one just last night, so, if you do see Bill Granger's "Feed Me Now ! grab it and I'm not getting paid for saying that - perhaps I should, but that"s another story.

Wednesday, 20 May 2009

Still on the Cape Town vibe, I call this Cape Town Brekkie (breakfast in full) because I was inspired to create this recipe after sampling "scrambled eggs on coconut bread..." at Manna Epicure on Kloof Street, Cape Town. As soon as I saw this on the menu, I knew I was going to order it. I mean how can a meal that sensitizes all the wonderful tastes of sweet (coconut bread), sour (eggs) and hot (rucola) not taste nice - what an amalgamation of taste to really delight your taste buds - your mouth should be screaming with delight if you are adventurous enough to try it of course.

More about my Cape Town foodie experiences later God willing (I promise) but for now, let's try creating the experience at home in Vienna. If you get up early, this can all be done the same morning as coconut bread doesn't take that long to make. Just get all your ingredients (150g flaked coconut, 2 eggs, 250g of plain flour, 100g of melted butter, 200ml of milk, 200g of caster sugar and 2 teaspoons each of baking powder and ground cinnamon). Sift all the dry ingredients into a big bowl, make a well in the centre and pour the milk and egg mixture into the centre and mix. After that, melt the butter in the microwave and pour into the sticky mixture and mix well. Pour into a 21 by 10 cm loaf tin, slightly greased and covered with baking paper/parchment measuring... and put into the oven at 180C for about 45 minutes.

As soon as it is ready, take out of the oven and let cool for about 10 minutes and lift out of the pan.

Now ! make the eggs.

I'm sorry, but being trained as an economist, I'm going to use a common terminology here "assume, assume...." So, I assume you know how to make scrambled eggs, souffle style, whereby you seperate the egg whites from the yolks, beating the egg whites until whiteish, add a bit of cream (optional) and place in a not too hot pan with butter and pour the egg mixture in, assuming that your grill works and is already hot - what a mouthful. OK ! you need to watch the eggs carefully, making sure that the mixture doesn't become an omellete. So as soon as you can, about 45 seconds, scramble it, place under the very hot grill for about another 45 seconds, mix again, checking until it is cooked through but without brown burnt bits.

Place on top of the slices of the coconut bread, top with Rucola (rocket in English or arugula for others), take a picture and eat. I topped mine with Reduced White Balsamic cream - bought of course in Cape Town and made in Franschoek (foodie capital of South Africa), a small town within the Western Cape peninsula, so this really was a Cape Town experience. If this is too much hassle, buy an airline ticket to Cape Town and visit Manna Epicure on Kloof Street. Much cheaper to try it at home I think...

In any case coconut bread can also be enjoyed on it's own - you can see the cinnamon bits on a bit of coconut strand, hmmmm !

A friend of mine enjoyed it so much that after telling me he would pay for it, advised me to try and sell the recipe to local cafes, but I also gathered he hadn't eaten all day. If it's that good, I think I'll save it for my cafe, which I pray I'll be able to open one of these days. As the bread gets older, say about 3 days or 2 days in the hot summer, place in the fridge and toast it and for some extra indulgence, spread a little butter on top, or place some banana slices on top and finish with vanilla ice cream for a dessert... so many ways to enjoy.

In summary you need

250g plain flour

100g melted butter

200ml of fresh milk

2 organic eggs

2 teaspoons each ground cinnamon & baking powder

200g caster sugar

150g flaked coconut

21cm by 10cm loaf tin

Scrambled eggs

Inspired by a recipe in Marie Claire's Kitchen and from Manna Epicure Cafe, Cape Town

Saturday, 18 April 2009

Looks like a lot doesn't it ? But it isn't for one greedy person who loves pancakes. Actually I'm not greedy, but I have another habit - I'm weak at the knees for sweet breakfast on Sunday mornings, but with my wife out for the weekend and nothing sweet in the kitchen to eat, I scanned through some cookbooks looking for something small, sweet and easy to make. Failing in my mission, I spotted some left over Organic Maple Syrup and thought "how about pancakes" but of course as you know, most pancake recipes are written to be made for 4 people. Not to be stopped in my tracks, I studied 2 cookbooks and tried to merge two recipes to suit what I imagined would be a pancake recipe for one, so in summary, I decided to halve portions on what looked like an easy American pancake recipe from two books, Nigella Lawson's "How to be a domestic Goddess" and Marie Claire's Kitchen. Now ! I am assuming think you know there are two types of pancakes - the normal one and the American one. The latter is sort of short, fat and more dense, whereas the "normal" one is thin and flat. In any case I opted for the American ones as I feel they have a more "breakfast feel".

So straight to business and it couldn't be easier - put 150g of plain flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of sugar, 150ml of fresh organic milk and 1 large egg and 20g melted butter into a food blender and pulse until you get a thickish dough mixture. If you don't have a blender - shame on you - OK! times are hard, but put all the dry ingredients together in a big bowl, make a whole in the centre, pour the wet stuff in the middle and mix very quickly as you don't want lumps. Leave for 10 minutes to settle. Then get your pancake pan out, put on your stove on medium to high heat, place a knob of butter onto the pan and as it begins to sizzle, place a ladle of the mixture onto the pan and fry until the top of the uncooked pancake begins to bubble then turn over and continue frying the other side - it should take about 2 minutes in total per pancake. Place in a warm oven until you finish the remaining 5 or 6, place on a plate and place small knobs of butter in between each pancake ad a larger piece on the hot pancakes, watch the butter melt, drizzle with maple syrup and take a picture to impress your friends.

Enjoy ! It was a really nice experiment and I am glad to let you know that I didn't eat all 5 pancakes. My kids who usually don't like pancakes, were all over my plate and I gave them one to share, even though they had just finished their own breakfast..... hmmmmm!

Inspired by a recipe from Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess, Marie Claire's Kitchen and me

Friday, 10 April 2009

So get your oven up to 180C, take 175g of self-raising flour, 75g of plain flour, 150g of caster sugar, 100ml of good sunflower oil, 2 large free-range or organic eggs, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, 200ml of organic sour cream and about 100g of fresh or frozen blueberries, mix with a fork until it all comes together into a sticky looking dough and what do you get ? The simplest blueberry muffin recipe I've ever seen and it tastes really good too and can be ready before breakfast, if you wake up on time of course. Don't forget to spoon the mixture, one tablespoon at a time into 12 muffin cases, placed into muffin tins and bake for about 20 minutes.

OK ! I didn't event this recipe entirely - it comes from one of my favorite chefs, Donna Hay - the queen of simple delicious food, in her book "Off the Shelf". BUT.... of course there are some slight modifications from me. So for example, she recommends 250g of self-raising flour, but although I keep the flour level at 250g, I shared it with plain flour and self-raising flour, 75g and 175g respectively - Why ? usually plain flour makes mixtures more dense and moist because it doesn't rise, provided you don't add baking powder of course. Now! I like my cakes moist, so that's why I did this. Also, I used 100ml of sunflower oil as opposed to the recommended 80ml to make it more moist and finally I added slightly more caster sugar because the sour cream can be a bit over-powering and one thing I can't stand is an non-sweet cake.

So what's that then on top of the muffin ? Well ! I'm not finished yet. When I made the muffins today - yes this is the first time that I've blogged on a recipe the very day that I made it, so this is a really fresh blog- I digress, but this is like a little crumble on top, a very English take on muffins and I got the idea from the cook book of my favourite sandwich shop in London, Pret-a-manger. For the crumble, just mix about 50g of soft butter with 50g of brown sugar and 50g of plain flour and sprinkle these on top of the muffin mixture before you put into the oven.

Wednesday, 25 March 2009

"OK ! Who said that ?" Clue - you'll have to be either a historian or a really mad foodie freak and as this is a food blog, I'm guessing that you will be the latter. OK! It is widely believed that it was uttered by Marie Antoinette, the final "Queen of France" whose husband Louis XVI, was the last king of France, deposed during the French Revolution. Apparently, she said it in condemnation of the complaining poor, who wanted bread, but perhaps someone should have pointed out that making cake requires more expensive ingredients than traditional bread and if they cannot afford bread, then they certainly cannot afford to buy cake ingredients like eggs, sugar and lots of butter. Alright, enough history - what exactly does this phrase mean and what does it relate to ? Strictly translated, the word "cake" translates back into French as BRIOCHE.

Yep ! the "Queen" of all breads in that although it resembles a bread strictly speaking, it is made with ingredients that you will find more in a cake, like lots of butter, eggs and some sugar.... I guess you are beginning to see the connection right ? I hope so ?

Now, to make this lovely invention, I'm going to try a very step-by-step approach with lots of pictures. One reason for this is that I like taking pictures, but seriously, because it is a thrilling bread to make I think it is nice to capture every moment. So some rules of the game - I must confess, this is one bread where gadgets work, because of the very sticky ingredients, it is less messier to make this using a food mixer (not a food processor). Sure, you can make this with your hand, but it will be really greasy and smell of butter and eggs for hours, so stay home and don't shake anyone's hands. Also, because it is always nice to have such a bread freshly baked for the morning, it is better to start making it the evening or night before and for this, make sure you have enough space in your fridge to store the bread in a container. Finally, you will glad to know that there are two versions for making brioche - one is quite rich, where you are encouraged to use almost equal amounts of flour and butter (as evident in the Cooks Book by DK), the other one encourages a half quantity of butter against the flour and this is the one that I tend to use.

Here we go. First, place 500g of plain flour (strong white is best) together with 15g of fresh yeast, 70g of caster sugar, 1 teaspoon of salt and 2 eggs into the food mixer on medium speed. Continue mixing until the dough begins to come together, after which add another 2 eggs and 250g of softened butter, cut into chunks. The dough should be mixed until it seriously hugs the dough hook, whereby when you stop the mixer and lift the top of the mixer, the dough will hold onto the dough hook, refusing to leave. Scrape this back into the bowl and cover with cling film for about 2 hours. Then take out and work the dough on a floured surface (if not it will stick) to deflate it, then place back into a bowl, cover again and put it into the fridge overnight.

To have for breakfast wake up early enough, like 2 hours before you intend to eat it and shape as you want. When I make brioche, I always make two versions, Briochettes in 4 French fluted tins and one as a Brioche Nanterre loaf. For Briochettes, cut with a very sharp knife, 4 pieces about 15 cm each. From each of this piece, remove a small bit that you can roll into a ball about the size of the top of your thumb, place the larger piece into well buttered/greased fluted tins, dent the centre with your thumb print and place the small dough balls into the hole - glaze with a one egg mixture.

For the Brioche Nanterre loafs, cut the remaining dough into 4 equal pieces and roll into a rectangular shape, place into a well greased loaf tin, side by side so that they are touching. Now cut very gently the top of each piece, using sharp scissors, a cross - glaze with egg mixture.

Leave both versions for one hour to rise, put the oven on 180C and bake for 20 minutes for the Nanterre, checking regularly and on 200C for about 10 minutes for the Briochettes.

For the Nanterre, you should get a nice rich yellowish glaze peeping through a nice brown crust.

For the Briochettes, they should puff up and when you insert a stick inside, it should be dryish but not heavy. Once they are ready, place onto a wire rack for about 5 minutes to cool and serve and you will be the star of the family or friends if you can get them to come to yours early enough for breakfast, but with this type of bread, I'm sure they will be racing over to yours. My kids start fighting for the briochettes, which are really cute - them and the briochettes of course.

If you don't finish the bread within 2 days, you can toast the loaf version, top with a bit of butter and jam and if you love contrast, top with cheddar cheese. To really spoil yourself the French way, soak slices of Brioche in an egg mixture, fry and serve with jam for "French Bread".

Saturday, 14 March 2009

My version of an Italian inspired breakfast, with souffle style omelette on ciabatta bread, topped with fresh rucola and garnished with balsamic vinegar cream. Before making the souffle eggs, turn on the grill until it is quite hot, then break 3 eggs, but separate the egg yolks and the egg white - you beat the egg white until white and fluffy, mix in the egg yolks, place into a medium hot frying pan, cook for about 2 minutes, place under the hot grill and watch the eggs puff up, careful that it doesn't burn on top. If you want, place grated cheese on top of the eggs and when it has melted, remove from the pan and voila, it is done. Place on top of day old ciabatta, topped with fresh rucola and balsamico cream, bellissimo.

Sunday, 28 December 2008

Impress Your Friends - this is category in which I will share with you some secrets on how to "impress your friends" with very simple but impressive recipes or ideas.

Naturally growing wild from Iran to India and also grown in northern Africa and now in California, Pomegranates are now one of those trend fruits. One of those fruits that have been known for 100s of years as being good for you to the locals but then someone from the "rich" World discovers it and suddenly it becomes a trend. From a healthy perspective it has potassium, vitamin C and is rich in anti-oxidants - OK ! what was that last bit ? The stuff that helps your body fight of toxins and body depleting diseases like cancer, so supposedly if you eat a lot, you should be well on your way to fighting off bad stuff from invading your body - Well ! if you look after your body and maintain a healthy lifestyle of course. It is also one of the very few fruits mentioned in the Koran, the Muslim holy book, so it has, since time immemorial, been an honoured fruit. So, how do you eat it and why does it look good ?

First things first, get your ex-colleague from Tunisia to send you a bunch of pomegranates from his farm and hey presto, experiment with your pomegranate. Well, although that happened to me luckily, it is easier to go and buy it from the shop and as it is in season now, it shouldn't be too hard to find. Get your pomegranate, cut it open half ways, turn upside down and smack it really hard over a bowl, and the seeds will drop down like water. Remove any white bits and only keep the red seeds.

Look at this picture, the ruby red seeds glossed over with rich Greek Yoghurt and a dash of clear honey. This is the natural way to eat it as recommended by moi. The good stuff is actually in the pomegranate seed - the white pip - this is where all the vitamins and nutrients are, so eating it fairly natural is a good way to gain as much from it as possible, well with a bit of honey and yoghurt. Why ? you may ask, am I mixing it with some thick high fat content food like Greek yoghurt and natural honey. First of all, looks are not everything. Pomegranates look great but they have a very sharp, slightly bitter after taste, so the honey cuts through the sharpness of the taste. Secondly, yoghurt is naturally good for you in fighting stomach bugs and so are the white pips inside the pomegranate seed. Here, we come to one of the natural laws of food eating - it is always good to compliment, where possible, food items that have the same traits, so in this case, the yoghurt and pomegranate seed are good for your tummy (What English people call your stomach). So, there is some logic to my encouraging you to mix these ingredients together, plus it tastes good together - after all food is all about tasting good too.

You can also sprinkle pomegranate seeds over cereals - the healthy versions of course like this bowl of crunchy Swiss Muesli, along the lines of complimenting healthy food items together. You can impress your friends if you invite them over for breakfast with these options. You can also put a handful of pomegranates into a saucepan with 2 dessert spoons of brown sugar and heat until just a bit syrupy, 10 minutes should do it, and you can use this molasses looking syrup to spoon over fish dishes or chicken breast dishes. You can also sprinkle pomegranate seeds over a salad to add colour and to colour a rice dish towards the end with some raisins, to give it that impressive look and to "impress your friends", so they can say Wow ! you're a real genius in the kitchen (insert name here).

Sunday, 14 December 2008

So where do I start ? With breakfast of course and I thought I would run through the basics of making one of my favourite breakfast drinks, the "smoothie". What could be more healthy and tasty than a glass full of your favourite fruit all squashed up to go down easily than your throat. I usually make smoothies quite often during the summer when there's easier access to fresh fruit, but with my kids, who already know the good stuff, insisting that they only like daddy's smoothie and insist on me making it every week, I have now broken with tradition. However, in the winter, it is still easy to get fruits like bananas (Europe's favourite fruit) and pineapple (my favourite fruit). Of course you can buy frozen fruit but it isn't the same.

OK ! I digress naturally as my taste buds began to water with the thought of a smoothie. Ok ! back to the basics of smoothies. If you have ever watched people making smoothies especially in cafes, you will notice that they pop fruit into a blender with ice blocks (or ice cubes). However, this is the first mistake - how can you "water" down the natural taste of fruit with water ?

So, the first thing is to get your favourite fruit and cut it up into bit size pieces and put into a freezer bag and pop it into the freezer, thereby escaping the need to add ice cubes to give your smoothie that icy taste and look. After all, you want to get the maximum taste from the fruit. The first thing is therefore to throw your fresh frozen fruit into the blender;

You then need to compliment this with some natural protection, Vitamin C, like fresh orange juice or a very good shop (store) bought orange juice. You need this to pulse with the frozen fruit for a few seconds until you get what should look like a pulp.

Another pointer is to avoid using sugar or sugar syrups, as not all fruit once blended, tastes that great when mixed with other stuff. So what is the secret ? Apple Juice. Why ? Because once juiced, apple produces the naturally sweetest fruit juice. So, avoid the sugar syrups and use a bit of Apple Juice to add that natural sugar to your smoothie.

Finally, compliment your frozen fruit with a very fresh ripe fruit, like bananas - this will give it a nice taste.

There are other things like fresh mint sprigs if you can get them, which has a nice feeling for your tummy (or stomach).

Et Voila ! You'll get this lovely looking smoothie with layers of frozen bits mixed with fresh fruit and juice.

In summary, the recipe for a classic smoothie goes like this

160g or big handful of ice fruit (like pineapple or strawberries)

250ml of fresh orange juice

125ml of apple juice

1 and a half very fresh/freckled banana or 2 bananas if you want it thicker

Few sprigs of fresh mint

A very good blender that can handle crushing iced fruit

Makes about 600ml, enough for 4 juice glasses or 2 tall glasses

These are guidelines but feel free to alter the measurements making sure that you pay close attention to balancing the liquid and fruit measurements, so that it isn't too liquid or too thick.